Cooling plate for blast furnace inwalls and mantles



Aug. 12, 1941. J. L. wlcK, JR

COOLING PLATE FOR BLAST FURNACE INWALLS AND MANTLES' Filed May 27, 1941 m m 3 w W H v 4, 5 .s m m J Patenierl 'Aug. 12, 1 941 INWALLS AND MANTLES James L. Wick, In, Youngstown, Ohio, assignor to The Falcon Ohio Bronze Company, Youngstown,

' Application May 21, 1941, Serial No. 395,323

2 Claims.

Thisinvention relates to metallurgical blast furnaces and more particularly to the watercooled plates which are conventionally used to cool the upper portion of the shaft or stack of the'furnace. The shaft or-stack of the furnace rests upon the mantle and is frequently referred to as the inwall. Together with the mantle, the inwall is cooled by hollow water-cooled plates which are buried within the refractory brickwork of which these portions of the furnace are composed. Ordinarily, the hollow, water-cooled plates for cooling the inwall and mantle are (01. 122-6) posed in passages extending to the exterior wall of the stack and connected to the cooling plate in such manner as to provide some flexibility between the pipe and cooling plate, fluid inlet and shaped like segments of cylinders to conform to the circular contour of, the wall of the inwall or mantle of the furnace; and they provide integrally formed necks which project through the refractory brickwork to the exterior thereof to thus provide'means for circulating the cooling water.

Due to the fact that a conventional inwallor mantle plate is buried within the refractory tory brickwork and the body portion of the inwall or mantle plate; and this movement causes the cracking of the integral elongated neck portions, whereby they will no longer efliciently conduct water and are thereby rendered inoperative. This situation is totally different from that which is encountered in the bosh of the furnace, wherein the water-cooled bosh plates are. usually considerably smaller than inwall or mantle plates and are not buried within the refractory brickwork of the furnace shaft or stack, but are disposed in cavities from which they may be removed and replaced in case of damage.

In patent application Serial No. 193,493, flied March 2, 1938, entitled "Cooling plate for blast furnace inwalls and mantles," of which, together with Louis M. Nesselbush, I am co-applicant, there is disclosed and claimed within that portion of the refractory stack extending above the mantle a hollow coolingplate embodying fluid intake and fluid outlet connections which terminate inwardly of the exterior wall of the stack, together with protection pipes which are disfluid outlet conduits extending through the protection pipes and detachably secured to the respective connections on the hollow cooling plate whereby the conduits may be easily replaced when damaged; The flexibility described accommodates relative movement, with the result that there is nobreakage of the protection .pipes where they connect with the body portion of the plate. The fluid intake and outlet conduits which extend through these protection pipes may easily be replaced if desired by detaching them, rethreading the body portion of the plate if necessary, and then attaching new conduits. Such construction obviates the necessity of abandoning inwall or mantle plates when only their water .connections have failed.

welded, pinned, screw-threadedly or otherwise connected to the body portion of the plate, either in the shop or in the field, whereby the possibility of detachment thereof is eliminated.

To the accomplishment of these and other desirable objects and purposes, I have designed .the

present, preferred embodiments of the invention presented in the accompanying drawing forming a part of this specification and to which reference should be had in connection with the following detailed description, and in the drawing, for simplicity, like reference numerals have been employed to designate the same parts throughout the several views.

-' In'the drawing:

' Figurel is a sectional plan of the device of the present invention as embodied in the inwall or mantle of a metallurgical blast furnace, the said inwall or mantle being shown fragmentarily.

Figure 2 is an enlarged sectional view on the line 11-11 of Figure 1.

Referring more particularly to the drawing, the numeral I designates the shaft or stack of a conventional metallurgical blast furnace. As

previously mentioned, this shaft or stack includes the inwall of the furnace which rests upon the mantle (not shown). Beneath the mantle are the bosh and hearth or crucible.

The inwall. or mantle plate of the invention is shown at 2 as comprising a large relatively flat hollow body which is substantially rectangular in section and shaped in plan to conform to a. segment of a cylinder, thereby providing a concave inner edge 3 and a convex outer edge 4. It will thus be seen how theinwall or mantle plate 2 circulates the cooling water circumferentially of the furnace in the manner long known to those skilled in the art. At suitable locations along the convex outer edge 4 of the inwall or mantle plate 2, water is fed to and. from the same by suitable connections which may be placed side-by-side, in remote positions, or otherwise.

As shown in Figure 2, the inwall or mantle plate 2 of the present invention is provided at its water intake and outlet connections with interior boss portions 5 which are apertured and internally screw-threaded, as shown at 6 and 1, respectively. The diameter of the apertures 6 is small as compared with the diameter of the boss portions 5, thereby providing in each instance a wall of substantial thickness. According to this construction, the water inlet and outlet conduits 8 and 9, respectively, may be externally screw-threaded, as shown at I0, and connected directly to the internal screw-threads 6 of the boss portion 5 of the inwall or mantle plate 2. In the event of stripping the threads 6 of the boss portion 5, the latter, due to its substantial wall thickness, maybe easily rethreaded. This is of considerable importance due to the very frequent breakage of water conduits adjacent the inwall or mantle plate in the ordinary operation of the blast furnace.

The water intake and outlet connections are provided with exterior boss portions H in alignment with the interior boss portions 5.

According to the teachings of the present invention, there is connected to the periphery of each of the exterior boss portions I I a flexible pipe l2 which extends from the inwall ormantle plate 2 to the exterior of the shaft or stack I. These flexible pipes l2 form housings for the 'water intake and outlet conduits 8 and 9, re-

spectively, and serve as guideways for the ready installation or removal of the latter.

The inner ends of the flexible pipes l2 may be secured to the exterior boss portions ll of the inwall or mantle plate 2 in any suitable manner, as an example of which welding is given, being shown in the drawing at l3. This elimihates the possibility of detachment of the flexible pipes l2 either during theerection of, the shaft or stack I or subsequent thereto.

The foregoing construction permits considerable deflection to accommodate changes accruing from expansion and contraction during the operation of the blast furnace.

While I have shown and described one specifl embodiment of the present invention, it will be readily understood by those skilled in the art that I do not wish to be limited exactly thereto, since various modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the invention as defined by the following claims.

I claim:

1. In a metallurgical blast furnace comprising a refractory stack extending above the mantle thereof, a hollow cooling plate buried within the wall of said refractory stack whereby refractory portions of the said stack are provided between the inner and outer walls thereof and the said hollow cooling plate, the exterior wall of said stack having a pair of passages communicating with said hollow cooling plate, fluid intake and fluid outlet connections for said hollow cooling plate, each of said connections beingin alignment with one of said passages and terminating inwardly of the exterior wall of said stack, a flexible protection pipe disposed in each of said passages and connected to said hollow cooling plate, and fluid inlet and outlet conduits extending through said flexible protection pipes and detachably secured to their respective connections on said hollow cooling plate whereby said conduits may be easily replaced when damaged, etc.

2. In a metallurgical blast furnace comprising a refractory stack extending above the mantle thereof, -a hollow cooling plate buried within the wall of said refractory stack whereby refractory portions of the said stack are provided between the inner and outer walls thereof and the said hollow cooling plate, the exterior wall of said stack having a 'pair of passages communicating with said hollowcooling plate, a pair of seat means on said hollow cooling plate, fluid intake and fluid outlet connections within said seat means, each of said seat means being in alignment with one of said passages and terminating inwardly of the exterior wall of said stack, a flexible protection pipe disposed in each of said passages and connected to the seat means in alignment therewith, and fluid inlet and outlet conduits extending through said flexible protection pipes and detachably secured to their respective connections on said hollow cooling plate whereby said conduits may be easily replaced when damaged, etc.

JAMES L. WICK JR. 

